Confidential Mail with Tracking and Authentication is a process for facilitating confidential electronic communications between two information workers, each of which may be located within different organizations, whereby privacy is guaranteed by the message configuration and not by a directory service within the information worker's organizations.
Generally, in order to facilitate confidential communications between two information workers, there is a need for system administrators of respective organizations to communicate with one another and set up directories and systems that allow for such confidential communications. For example, prior to an information worker within a first company being able to send confidential encrypted electronic communications to an information worker within a second company, the system administrators within both companies need to perform set-up operations for each information worker within the respective organization's rights management server. There is a need for a system and method that provides for confidential electronic message transmission without the need for any administrator intervention or set-up operations within the directories of each organization's rights management server.
There is also a need for a system and method that provides for confidential electronic message transmission that can be verified and authenticated. Current email systems and methods do not allow for verification that an electronic message has actually been received by the intended recipient. Nor do current email systems and methods allow the electronic message transmitted to be authenticated, and thereby providing the sender of the message an assurance that the message has not been intercepted and tampered with. In these current email systems, there is no way for a message sender to prove that the intended receiver actually received the encrypted message sent. The server from which the message was originally sent has to trust that the system and user requesting an encryption key associated with the message previously transmitted actually has the message that corresponds to the encryption key. The problem with these systems and email communication methods is that they can provide no assurance that transmitted message actually reached the intended receiver and that it was not tampered with during transmission.
With current email systems, there is no way of tracking or determining unauthorized message forwarding or interception has occurred. Such pitfalls make traditional e-mail an unattractive solution for the sender of confidential information. Similarly, there is no way to prevent a first user from opening a message received from a sender and alleging; they did not get the message; the document received was not the correct document; that the message could not be decrypted because the key provided didn't correspond with the message. Current electronic mail systems have only limited tracking capabilities. Messages typically cannot be tracked between different communication servers and recipients. There is a need for a system and method of transmitting messages whereby the message may be tracked and assurance is provided that the intended receiver actually received the message. There is a need for a system and message transmission method that can provide proof that the intended receiver actually received the message.